The present invention is directed to integrated circuits and their processing for the manufacture of semiconductor devices. More particularly, the invention provides a method and device for a clean room shoe and/or boot for the manufacture of integrated circuits. As merely an example, the shoe and/or boot is used in a clean room facility having a rating of about Class 100, Class 10, or better. But it would be recognized that the invention has a much broader range of applicability.
Integrated circuits have evolved from a handful of interconnected devices fabricated on a single chip of silicon to millions of devices. Conventional integrated circuits provide performance and complexity far beyond what was originally imagined. In order to achieve improvements in complexity and circuit density (i.e., the number of devices capable of being packed onto a given chip area), the size of the smallest device feature, also known as the device “geometry”, has become smaller with each generation of integrated circuits.
Increasing circuit density has not only improved the complexity and performance of integrated circuits but has also provided lower cost parts to the consumer. An integrated circuit or chip fabrication facility can cost hundreds of millions, or even billions, of U.S. dollars. Each fabrication facility will have a certain throughput of wafers, and each wafer will have a certain number of integrated circuits on it. Therefore, by making the individual devices of an integrated circuit smaller, more devices may be fabricated on each wafer, thus increasing the output of the fabrication facility. Making devices smaller is very challenging, as each process used in integrated fabrication has a limit. That is to say, a given process typically only works down to a certain feature size, and then either the process or the device layout needs to be changed. Additionally, as devices require faster and faster designs, improved fabrication facilities and other related articles must be improved.
An example of an article that has limitations is a clean room garment and shoes. These garments and shoes must periodically be washed in order to maintain a substantially particle free environment in conventional fabrication facilities, commonly called wafer fabs. Unfortunately, life expectancy of clean room garments and shoes are often limited. These and other limitations of clean room garments can be found throughout the present specification and more particularly below.
From the above, it is seen that an improved technique for processing semiconductor devices including cleaning clean room garments is desired.